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Battle of Bahawalpur
Battle of Bahawalpur The Battle of Bahawalpur was the most decisive battle of the Indian theatre of WW1, destroying a large portion of the Imperial Army and shattering its morale, leading to the Nesarian Death March - a continuous retreat back to the Imperial heartland, plagued by disease, a lack of supplies and violent rebels. Major Enaal Ranakke was also wounded in this battle, and killed not long after. Although the Empire's worst military defeat in relative terms is hotly debated, in absolute terms there is no question that Bahawalpur is the worst defeat the Empire has ever suffered. Prior to the Battle of Kiev in 1941, it was also the largest encirclement in history, and Kiev only beat it by a small margin. Course of the Battle The engagement near Bahawalpur began on the 3rd of October 1917, but was initially fairly small scale until both sides poured in reinforcements, and by the 15th of October, nearly 1,400,000 soldiers had assembled at the location. It was on this date that both sides began to engage in large-scale manoeuvres. The Imperial advance began at 11:00 AM on the 15th, pushing back the British forces in the centre, although the British put up heavy resistance in their retreat. At this time, approximately half of the British guns were in hiding. By the 17th, the Imperial forces in the centre - which comprised about 350,000 - had advanced far beyond the flanks, where the British had not yielded an inch of territory and on the British right they had managed to gain some ground. Major Enaal Ranakke continually warned his commanding officer, Field Marshal Rexados Henica, that they were advancing too far without support from the flanks, but was ignored. At 1:00 AM on the 18th, the British came around the sides and cut off the Imperial force that had advanced, encircling them. Once the encirclement was established, the British stopped retreating and unveiled their hidden guns, commencing a bombardment at 3:00 AM on the encircled soldiers that lasted until 9:00 PM. The British also began deploying poison gas against the Imperial soldiers, who were unprepared for such an attack; previously there had been a "gentleman's agreement" between the two countries that they would not use gas against each other. Over the 19th, the encircled Imperial force tried desperately to break out, but took extreme losses attacking the British positions that were now well-fortified. After the Imperial force gave up on its attacks at 6:00 PM, the British advanced with a simultaneous large-scale gas bombardment, which was both the largest and deadliest gas attack in history, killing up to 70,000 soldiers by 11:00 PM and incapacitating many thousands more. By the morning of the 20th, following both gas and conventional bomardment, approximately 130,000 of the 350,000 who had advanced still survived, and only 95,000 of those were fit to fight. After another devastating bombardment that lasted from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM, the encircled Imperial soldiers surrendered. While all this was happening, the British were also successfully defending the flanks against continuous and bloody Imperial assaults that attempted to break the encirclement. Hearing that over half the force present had surrendered, the morale of the remaining Imperial force was shattered. The soldiers mutinied against Field Marshal Henica's order to attack again, and Major Enaal Ranakke organised a retreat, having to sacrifice up to 10,000 more soldiers attempting to get the whole force to safety. It was in this rear-guard action that Ranakke was wounded, and in a similar rear-guard action on the 7th of November he would be killed by shrapnel. Field Marshal Henica committed suicide the day after the defeat, meanwhile the British commander - Field Marshal Henry Connorson - was given a knighthood, and some began to refer to him by the nickname of "Hannibal" due to him commanding "another Cannae".